Granite Coast Vineyards 2014 Chardonnay

In the case of cheap wine, you never know what you are going to get. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Granite Coast Vineyards 2014 Chardonnay is a definite loss! This wine retailed at my local Trader Joe’s for $6.99 which is usually in the safe zone for most wines that you can normally buy there. They may not be anything to write home about but they will certainly be drinkable. The Granite Coast Vineyards 2014 Chardonnay was drinkable and semi-enjoyable right out of the fridge but the moment it got a little warmer it was a disaster.

Granite Coast Vineyards 2014 Chardonnay comes in at 13.5% ABV. The fruit is from the Monterey area of California. I have no idea about the aging of this wine but their red blend is often celebrated and it’s a combination of American oak, Hungarian oak, and French oak. I usually like a central coast chardonnay so I was eager to get it home and try it. I chilled the wine to about 50 degrees. The wine had a faint pear aroma when opened. The color of the wine is mid toned gold with a peridot sheen.

Granite Coast Vineyards 2014 Chardonnay started out with a moderately perfumed nose with lemon, pear, minerals, and oak. When tasted, the nose flavors were present but with some additional notes of green grapes, apple, chanterelle mushrooms, and white pepper. The finish was a bit short but it had nice minerals, oak, and pepper. The acid was very nice, no complaints there. Even though the wine was a bit simple and had a short finish it was enjoyable enough to keep drinking and I was thinking I’d rate it about 82 to 84 points. I had a few bites of my meal and tasted the wine with it. It was alright, nothing special. I had a few more bites of my food and didn’t have more wine for a few minutes. By now the wine had been out of the fridge about 20 minutes. I took another sip and the wine tasted terrible. It tasted like someone had poured saccharine into the wine and the pleasant oakiness and mushroomy note had morphed into something entirely undrinkable. I put my glass back in the fridge. It helped a little but some of the fake sweet nasty flavors were still there. I tried what was in the bottle the next day and had to pour it down the sink.

Bottom line, I can’t rate this wine at anything other than a big fat zero. If you’ve already bought it, please keep it chilled the whole time by pouring just a sip or two at a time; keeping the bottle cold with a Corkcicle. Hopefully, I got a bad bottle. If not, I can’t see how any retailer could sell this for $7.